After recently reading the entry on doing "inductive" bible study in the form of precept ministries, I was reminded of the reason I rarely use highlighting; it is the same reason I don't do this approach on a study bible (any more): I need to see a clean view when I'm approaching the scripture new.

USE CASE: Help me do "Inductive Study" beyond the effectiveness I can get on paper.I got one of the original inductive study bibles many years ago (before precept existed) and went all the way through from gen to rev and marked it up... it was a fantastic experience and I grew SO much in the Word, but I also find that every time I went back to it, the NEW things I would discover, and NEW approaches to the text I wanted to make were crowded by the existing work. So I bought a new Inductive Study Bible. Funny thing is, I rarely mark it up like I did the other because of this experience. Instead, if I want to do this now, I print out the text on 3-hole punch paper and go to town on it. But these are now buried in files and 3-hole folders... rarely re-approached like I do my original inductive study bible, not searchable like user notes, etc..

USER HIGHLIGHTSThis is where I think Accordance can REALLY fill a unique need in the bible study community: Associate highlights with user notes and show the highlights only when the specific user notes are open.

HIGHLIGHTS BASED ON COLORED SYMBOL FONTSAnother thing that the precept approach does that I have taken up is the use of symbols instead of just plain colored highlighters. For example, a red heart when I see love or a synonym for love, a blue heart when I see a reference specifically to God's love or a synonym for it. It allows my eye to see patterns and frequency in a very visual way (see also Edward Tufte on visualization). * Simplest implementation would be something like a custom colored symbol font "strikethrough" capability as a highlighter style. * Best case would be something like a "clear" highlight with resizable symbol that defaults to center of the selection, but could be customized to be right or left justified as well.